animals to have sprung from earth, they must have done so in one of two wayseither they crawled out as worms, or they came out as eggs."

PLATO, the most celebrated of all the Grecian philosophers, represents Socrates, the wisest of the wise, as advocating the Transmutation theory to its fullest extent, by supposing that the wicked, after their penal wanderings of 10,000 years in the world of spirits, would again return to earth, and be "turned into asses and brutes of that kind;" while the souls of the good would "again migrate into a corresponding peaceable kind of animal, such as bees or wasps, or ants, or even into the same species again, and from these become moderate men." *

But it is in another work where Plato's talent shines out so brightly, in the description which he gives in his Banquet, or Treatise on Love, of the origin of the human race, and which is deserving of

* Plato's Phado, § 70. Herodotus only allows 3000 years as the limit of the Transmigration period.

your most attentive consideration. He gives Aristophanes the credit of this original suggestion, but we may suppose without doubt that it is his own transcendental idea; which he explains as follows:

Although men appear to be insensible to the power of Love, since they build no altars in its honour, as all priests ever will do in honour of those whom they worship, I will endeavour to explain its power in order that you may teach others. But you must first learn the nature of man, and what sufferings it has undergone. For our nature of old was not what it is now. Originally there was no such thing known as difference of sex. Every one was male and female alike, perfect in form, faculties and spirit. The exact shape of this being was a round ball of flesh, with four hands and four legs, with two faces upon a circular neck alike in every way, one head with four ears, and only one brain-not unlike one of your early progenitors, according to the high

authority of Darwin, who teaches that the primeval ancestor of all the vertebratæ was "an aquatic animal, with the two sexes united in the same individual." *

During the period of undivided sexes, this creature was a pattern of strength and speed. He could fell an ox as easily as Hercules; and when he wished to take a gallop, he had only to thrust out his four legs and four arms, and roll along the road like a wheel which had lost its tire. But these beings, which in reality were three in one, the male, the female, and the two combined, were the offspring of various parts of the solar system. The male kind was the produce of the sun, the female of the earth, and that which partook of the other two of the moon. Hence these creatures, proud of their shape and power, attempted to scale the heavens. Jupiter, unwilling to destroy the whole race as he had done to the giants, hit upon a plan by which man might still exist, though greatly shorn

* Descent of Man, i. 206; ii. 389.

of his strength. So the great Jove proceeded to cut these creatures into two parts, as you cut oranges when about to eat them.

Great was the consternation at this loss of power, the agony of cutting two sides asunder being intense. For man thus shorn of his rotundity could no longer wrestle with the lion, nor outstrip the deer. Each part of the divided creature was compelled now to stand upon two legs-a feat of much skill, the art of which he was slow to learn and swift to lose. Every step he attempted to take only showed him his loss of original power; and that the gods had laid upon him a burden too heavy to bear.

And this was not the worst. Besides having to pass his life in trying to stand on two legs, man found to his sorrow that he was parted from his better half. When the rebel rotundities were cleft in twain, the two halves were scattered in different parts of the world. Each wounded part sought its fellow, but the

gods took care that much of the search should be made in vain. This act of celestial vengeance broke down man's. spirit entirely. Alone in the cold world, and perched up in the air on two legs only, what could he do in the midst of his grief? Once indeed he felt inclined to rebel, but Jupiter quickly let him know that if he did not keep quiet, he should be split once more from the crown downwards, so that in future he would have to stand on one leg alone.

Man listened to this threat in an agony of fear, and submitted without any further murmuring. All that was left to him of his former bliss was a yearning hope of one day finding his own better half. Thus each man became a searcher, though only a few were fortunate enough to find their mates. Most had to seek for them long, and myriads never found them at all. When any one was fortunate enough to fall in with his own "better half," a true marriage of the spirit took place. To this longing desire of the cleft

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